Frenchie's was a madhouse. Annie had failed to show up for work, and one of the other waitresses was out sick, leaving T-Grace to wait tables herself. She stormed around the bar at a lightning pace, slinging plates of red beans and rice, serving beer, taking orders and barking out her own as she went. The heat and humidity had combined with her short temper to leave her looking frazzled and dangerous. Her red hair was a cloud of frizz around her head. Her eyes looked ready to pop out of her heat-polished face. She stopped in a clearing between tables and brushed her bangs off her forehead with the back of a hand, blowing a cooling breath upward as Laurel approached her.

"You get dat Jimmy Lee thrown in jail or what, chère?" she asked without preamble.

"He's been officially warned off," Laurel said, raising her voice to be heard above the racket of pool games, loud talk, and jukebox Zydeco.

T-Grace gave a derisive snort and propped a hand on her skinny hip. "Ovide, he warn dat bastard's ass off with some buckshot next time he come 'round."

"I wouldn't advise that," Laurel said patiently, silently thankful the Delahoussayes hadn't already resorted to such measures. The Cajuns had their own code of folk justice, a tradition that predated organized law enforcement in these parts. "If he bothers you again, call the sheriff and press charges."

"If he bothers us again," T-Grace said, a sly smile pulling at one corner of her thin mouth, "we're gonna need to hire more help. All dat rantin' and ravin' what he done on television was like free advertisin' for Frenchie's. My Ovide, he's in a panic tryin' to serve ever'body."

Laurel turned to see Ovide, stoic as ever, planted behind the bar, filling mugs and popping the tops off long-neck bottles, sweat beading on his bald spot like dew on a pumpkin. Leonce was playing backup bartender, his Panama hat tipped back on his head. As he slid a bottle across the bar to a customer, a grin slashed white across his close-cropped beard in counterpoint to the scar that ran red across his cheek.

"So what's the difference between a dead lawyer and a dead skunk in the middle of the road?" the customer asked. "There's skid marks in front of the skunk."

Leonce howled at the old joke and moved to dig another beer out of the cooler. Jack swiveled around on his bar stool, grinning like the Cheshire cat as his gaze landed smack on Laurel. He had made a token concession to the "No Shirt, No Shoes, Get the Hell Out" sign that hung on the wall behind the bar, but the red team shirt from the Cypress Lanes Bowling Alley hung open down the front, framing a wedge of muscular chest and flat belly.

T-Grace reached out and patted Laurel 's cheek, her eyes glowing as they darted between une belle femme and Jack. "Merci, ma petite. You done a fine job, you. Now come sit you pretty self down and have some supper before the wind comes up and blows you away, you so little!"

She took hold of Laurel 's arm with a grip that could have cracked walnuts and ushered her to the bar, where she ordered Taureau Hebert to go in search of some other place to sit his lazy behind, thereby vacating the seat next to Jack.

"Hey, Ovide!" Jack called, his devilish gaze on Laurel. "How 'bout a champagne cocktail for our heroine here?"

Laurel gave him a look and busied her hands arranging her skirt. Ovide slid a foaming mug of beer in front of her. Jack leaned over conspiratorially and murmured, "What he lacks in sophistication, he makes up for in sensitivity."

A chuckle bubbled up, and Laurel shook her head. She couldn't seem to stay mad at him, no matter what he did or said or made her feel.

"Don't you ever work, Boudreaux?" she asked, frowning at him.

His grin stretched, dimples biting deep in his lean cheeks. "Oh, yeah. Absolutely. All the time." He leaned closer, bracing one hand on the back of her stool, resting the other on her knee. His voice dropped a husky notch, and his breath tickled the side of her neck. "I'm workin' on you now, 'tite chatte."

Laurel arched a brow. "Is that right? Well," she drawled, poking him hard in the ribs with her thumb, "you've been laid off, hot shot."

Jack rubbed his side and pouted. "You're mean." His scowl, however, was ruined by the gleam in his eyes as he added, "I like that in a woman."

"You mind your manners, Jack," T-Grace said with a wry smile as she set a steaming plate of food down in front of Laurel. "This one, she's gonna show you what's what, just like what she did wit' dat damn preacher."

Jack grinned and winked at Laurel, and she felt a wave of warmth sweep through her that had nothing to do with the heat of the day. It had to do with laughter, with friends, with a sense of belonging. The realization flashed like a lightbulb going on above her head. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt welcome anywhere besides Aunt Caroline's house.

In Scott County she had always been an outsider, and then a pariah as she had leveled accusations at people no one wanted to believe capable of evil. She had told herself it didn't matter, that the only thing that mattered was justice, but it had mattered. She would have given anything back then to have someone in the community believe in her, support her, smile at her, joke with her.

She thought back to the first night she had come in here and remembered the sense of isolation that had enveloped her and the loneliness that had accompanied it. In just a matter of days the people here had accepted her, and acceptance was something she had ached for. She had called that need a weakness, but maybe it wasn't so much weak as it was human.

Dr. Pritchard's voice came back to her, soft and steady. "You're not perfect, Laurel, you're human."

"So, you managed to save the day again, did you, Baby?"

Savannah 's voice cut sharply into her thoughts. Laurel turned toward her sister, a fist of anxiety tightening in her belly. Savannah stood with a tall drink in one hand, the other propped on her hip. Her breasts were threatening to spill over the edge of her black bikini top, the sheer blouse she wore over it offering no backup modesty. Her hair was a mess, falling out of its topknot in curling dark ribbons.

"It was nothing so dramatic as that," Laurel said, automatically downplaying her accomplishment, as she had done all her life.

"Come on, Baby," Savannah said with a tight, unpleasant smile, her pale blue eyes shining too bright. "Don't be modest. We're a helluva team, you and me. You knock 'em on their butts, and I screw their brains out."

Laurel clenched her jaw and squeezed her eyes shut for an instant, trying to gather strength and patience. Jack caught the action and turned to Savannah with a frown.

"Hey, sugar, why you don' give it a rest for one night, huh?"

"Ooooh!" Savannah drew back with an exaggerated expression of mock fear, pressing her free hand to her throat. "What's this? Jack Boudreaux rising to an occasion that doesn't have its legs spread for him?"

"Bon Dieu," he muttered, shaking his head.

"What?" Savannah demanded, two vodka tonics beyond reason, too upset with the turns her life was taking to give a damn. "I'm too crude for you, Jack? That's hard to imagine, considering the way you butcher people in your books. I can't imagine anything offending you."

She wedged herself between his stool and Laurel 's, deliberately brushing his arm with her breast, sending him her most sultry expression. "We ought to go a couple rounds, Jack," she purred, raking a hot gaze from his crotch to his belly to his bare chest, finally landing on his face. "Just to find out."

He met her look evenly, his dark eyes intense, his mouth set in a grim line.

Laurel slipped down off her stool, doing her best to control the fine trembling in her limbs. "Sister, come on," she said, trying to take the glass from Savannah 's fingers. "Let's go home."

Savannah turned on her, angry that Laurel was always the one with the cooler head, always in control, always respectable and bright and perfect.

"What's the matter, Baby? Am I being an embarrassment?" she asked, as angry with herself as she was with Laurel. "You'll never say so in here, will you? Don't make a public scene. Don't call attention to yourself. Never air the dirty laundry in plain sight. Christ," she sneered, "you're just as bad as Vivian."

She jerked her hand free of Laurel 's grasp, sloshing vodka and tonic over the rim of her glass, her expression something that bordered so closely on hate that it took Laurel 's breath away.

"You go on and be little Miss Prim and Proper," she sneered, her voice laced with venom. "Always do the right thing, Laurel. Me, I've got better ways to spend my time."

She whirled around, almost losing her balance, the vodka numbing her equilibrium, as well as her inhibitions. Willing the floor to stop pitching, she walked away, her sights set on the pool players, her hips swinging, a hard laugh ringing out of her as she caught sight of Ronnie Peltier.

Laurel pressed a hand to her mouth and tensed against the emotions that were buffeting her like hurricane winds. She couldn't seem to get ahead. Every time she thought she was getting her feet under her, she got knocked back a step. She pulled in on herself, not hearing the noise of the bar, not seeing the look of concern Jack was giving her. All she heard was her pulse roaring in her ears. All she saw was the mistake she had made in coming home.

Without a word she turned and walked out of the bar. She didn't allow herself to think of anything at all as she crossed the parking lot. She just put one foot in front of the other until she had reached the levee, then she stood on the bank and stared out at the bayou, working furiously to tamp down the feelings Savannah had torn loose. It didn't do any good to get upset. Savannah was who she was. Her problems were rooted in a past she refused to let go of, was perhaps incapable of letting go of. She had her moments when she would say anything, do anything, and damn the consequences. It was pointless to let any of that get to her.

But it hurts, a small voice inside her said. The voice of a little girl who had only her big sister to rely on for love and comfort. The big sister who looked out for her, who protected her, who sacrificed for her.